Non-Graff Artwork

[Sir Mildred Pierce]

Filth & Flourish: a conversation not fit for broadcast, in any language​

They were sitting under the Manhattan Bridge, perched on a graffiti-smeared slab of concrete that had once been a foundation for something noble and city-funded. Now it was just theirs.

“Shit,” Darryl muttered, tapping something small and neat against his thumbnail before lifting it to his lips.

“Something is wrong?” Gustave turned to scan the river. “Explosion? Rodent swarm?”

Darryl chuckled, exhaling slow. “No, man. Not that kind. Just... the word. ‘Shit.’ You ever notice how it used to feel heavy? Now it’s just starter fluid.”

“Ah. You meant the noun. Not the injunction. Important distinction.”

“Exactly. Once upon a time, ‘shit’ meant something. Like it had weight. Now people throw it around like croutons.”

“Merde. The French variant. Stronger in smell. Softer in sound.”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about.” Darryl let the smoke drift upward, lazy and crooked. “We used to ration our curses. Now people drop ‘fuck’ like it's fucking garnish.”

“You cannot say ‘fuck’ on the radio.”

“You can on cable,” Darryl countered, “but only if it’s late, and the host looks ironic enough to neutralize it.”

Something passed between them—an object and a moment. Gustave didn’t smoke—couldn’t—but he held it briefly, as if performing a ritual from an ancient faith.

“In French, we say putain. Literal meaning is ‘whore.’ Functionally: a comma. My chassis could be melting. I would still say it. Putain de merde, il fait chaud aujourd’hui.”

“See, that’s art,” Darryl said. “We say ‘shitfuckballs’ and act like we invented jazz.”

“You invented jazz.”

“Yeah. Then sold it to Buick.”

“Cazzone.”

“Wait—cazzone?”

“Italian. Translation: big dick. Pejorative context. Example: You incompetent cazzone, you reversed the gondola.”

Darryl wheezed. “CNN would bleep you into oblivion.”

“Even in Venice.”

The bridge above them groaned with a passing train. It sounded like a rusted-out laugh.

“I remember when ‘bitch’ was the A-bomb,” Darryl said. “You dropped it, and the room tilted. Now it’s in cartoons.”

“That cannot be true.”

“It was a YouTube parody. Elmo got real dark.”

“Coño.”

“Damn,” Darryl said. “You’re escalating.”

“Sporca troia.”

“…What the hell was that?”

“Italian again. Translation: filthy sow. Intention: extreme disgust. Sound: charming, if whispered.”

“You say it like it’s a dessert. Like you’re offering me biscotti with rage.”

“Profanity is cultural. It is music. It is placement. Americans lost the plot. You turned poetry into branding.”

“You’re saying ‘suck my dick’ could’ve been Shakespeare?”

“No. But, I am saying it could have been delivered in iambic pentameter.”

They laughed like old men in a bar that didn’t exist anymore.

“In Québec, they swear with religion,” Gustave went on. “Tabarnak. Câlice. Ostie. Each word: a holy object. They converted Catholicism into weaponized street language.”

“Now that’s the good shit,” Darryl said. “Meanwhile, we’re yelling ‘fuckstick’ and calling it personality.”

“Fils de pute au cul brûlé.”

He blinked. “What’s that one?”

“Son of a bitch with a burnt ass.”

Darryl whistled. “You could bottle that.”

“It is French. All things become beautiful.”

They paused for a moment. The air beneath the bridge had the feel of rust and second chances.

“Would you like the worst one I know?”

“Always.”

Gustave leaned in slightly, optics glinting. The phrase arrived like a velvet punch.

“Să-mi lingi curul până la orgasm.”

Darryl stared at him. “Romanian?”

“Yes.”

“And that means…?”

“Lick my ass until I orgasm.”

Darryl leaned back like Miles Davis had just risen from the dead to solo at a halal cart.

“Okay,” he laughed. “You win.”

“There are no winners in filth. Only survivors.”

“Still—ain’t no way they’re letting that on NPR.”

“Not even at 2 a.m.”

“You just got that shit sitting in your dusty little archives?”

“I ran diagnostics on Eastern Bloc profanity libraries. The project was personal. I refer to that period as my Iron Curtain Adolescence.”

“You gotta get out more.”

“I am outside. With you.”

"Touché, mon ami."

They paused and watched the East River suck at the pilings like it was thinking something over.

Gustave tilted his head upward to watch a plane scratch its way across the sky.

And in that moment under the Manhattan Bridge, everything was fucking perfect.